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A New Low for the American People Seems Inevitable

Looking back to 2008, although the election of Barack Obama was a disappointment to me personally, from a national standpoint it was something for the American to be proud of. We finally proved something that for many years prior, I already knew to be true... that as a nation, racial prejudice no longer held a prominent role within our society as it had just 50 years ago, and had become nothing more than a societal anomaly.

His election to the presidency wasn't marred by racial protests, violence, or attempts at violence, and to this day those things still haven't reared their ugly heads. Indeed the presidential election of 2008 solidified that our society was no longer the society it was just a few generations ago, where racial politics played a significant role in presidential elections. Without a doubt, Barack Obama becoming president marked a positive, post-racial milestone in our nation's history... but unfortunately that pride was short lived and turned to shame just 4 years later.

With no incumbent is on the ballot, presidential job performance is meaningless and the nation's economic state plays only a moderate role in who the public chooses to vote for in a presidential election. When there's an incumbent on the ballot however (as Obama was in the 2012 election) and his presidential job performance, policies and the state of the nation's economy are noticeably bad or noticeably good, that almost always determines their fate on election day. The reelection of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton are examples of the former, while the defeat of Jimmy Carter in 1980 is a perfect example of the ladder. When those 3 factors are mixed, mediocre or don't stand out as bad or good, then it comes down to whether the opposing candidate's public persona is positive, and how close to the center their stand on the issues appears. Bill Clinton defeating Bush senior, and John Kerry losing to Bush junior, are 2 examples of the reelection bids of mediocre incumbents.

While electing Obama In 2008 represented a high point in American society, based on the state of the nations economy, having a higher unemployment rate that when he took office, a record number of people unemployed, lower family incomes than when he took office, a record low labor force, no foreign policy achievements, straining the relations with our Israeli allies, enacting Obamacare in spite of public disapproval, adding a record 6 trillion dollars to the nations debt (more than Bush did in 8 years), record government spending, 4 years of record, trillion dollar plus budget deficits, and an explosion of people who received public assistance, the reelection of Barack Obama in 2012 was an national embarrassment and represented a new low for the American electorate.

President Obama in his first 4 years as president, easily surpassed Jimmy Carter as the weakest, worse performing first term president of my lifetime... yet instead of the American people tossing him out on his ass like they did Jimmy Carter, they showed how superficial, shallow and how utterly detached they were from reality, by turning the election into a Hollywood style popularity contest and reelected him to a second term.

That election marked what I believed to be a low for both the U.S and the American electorate, but here I am 3 and a half years later facing the likely possibility that in this upcoming election, the American people are going to make the 2012 election look like it was America's finest hour and achieve a new political low regardless of who is elected president... and this time, both sides are to blame equally.

I never thought I would live to see the day in America, where one side would nominate for president a patently dishonest, phony, detached, extremely secretive, scandal ridden political obstructionist with an angry disposition, who offered Russia a "reset button", offered political favors for "charitable" donations and is anything but a people person that achieved absolutely nothing significant in her nearly 2 decades in public office... while the other side nominates a vain, self centered, vindictive, short tempered, thin-skinned billionaire/TV superstar who has no concept of the phrase "play nice", that has a plethora of ever changing core beliefs, never thinks before he shoots his mouth off and as president would likely refer to himself in the 3rd person as "King Donald ", and assume the role of "diplomatic anti-Christ" when it comes to working with congress or attending meetings involving international diplomacy.

In short, a Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton presidential election will transform many of the negative stereotypes heard around the world about the America people into hard core truths, and become the source of great national embarrassment from Maine to Malibu.

How can we as a nation hold our heads up high when instead of nominating the best and the brightest to lead this nation, we nominate a loud mouth, blow-hard TV circus clown and a dishonest, self-centered shrill who's only political asset is who she's slept with?

We should all be ashamed.

Grim17
1/9/2016
 
Yes, you should.

Partly to blame is the system you invented, it clearly is not working well.

However I disagree that anything new occurred in '08. The fact Obama is black is a mere side note, it should never have been played as the "first anything", but there you have it.

This started in 1960. There was a debate between former Vice President Richard Nixon and a Senator named John Kennedy. It was agreed by all who watched the first-ever televised debate that Nixon had wiped the floor with the rookie senator, that Kennedy showed himself to be uninformed and a lightweight on foreign policy.

It was not until the end of the day after and the next day, when pollsters discovered the opposite, that the viewers had given the victory to Kennedy because Nixon looked "like a bum", he had "five O'clock shadow".

That was when the voters lost control and television took over. Since then I believe you will find that the winners in elections since tend to be more charismatic than their opponent, and that's all Americans care about.

For the record, policy and platform is completely ignored, most Americans don't even realize that Romney and Obama had less than 5 degrees of separation on their platforms.

I can't see any change from the "rock star" idea, but how you can sell either of the choices noted as a "star" in the wake of Justin Trudeau is going to be, well, impossible. A tired old worn out whore and a bullying blow hard with a comb over...eke!
 
Somehow, America became so enamoured by celebrity that singers and actors and athletes and pro wrestlers fergawdsake get elected to high office. It's almost as if you need to be a talented performer to win an election, and attractive to boot.
Somewhere, in the background, are a couple of people who are homely, gawky, awkward on camera, maybe have poor speech, who would make excellent presidents and will never be given the chance to even run for the position.
 
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